The Real Thing
by Elizabeth Bennet-Darcy
Summary: Donna and Josh talk about his meeting with Hoynes and his future with Bartlet. JD


Title: The Real Thing

Author: Elizabeth Bennet-Darcy

Disclaimer: These characters I do not own, imagine my sadness.

Summary: I never write stories about what might happen, for fear of being wrong, but they are driving me mad with the lack of a relationship! This story came to me fully formed and demanded to be written. By the way, if Josh can buy sentimental skiing books as Christmas presents and try to open the Church of the Nativity on Christmas Eve, he can string Christmas lights for Donna!

Spoilers: A Change is Gonna Come

Rating: PG

"Hey," Donna looked up at the sound of Josh's voice. She had just stopped by her desk after the James Taylor concert. Josh stood in front of it with his coat on.

"You look great," he said at the same time she said, "Where have you been?"

Josh grinned at her, but she could see that something was off with him.

"You ready to go?" he asked. "Let me give you a ride home."

"I have my car here," she answered.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I can press the pedals," she said raising her right foot and flexing it for emphasis.

"Then you drive," he smiled again. She gave him a questioning look. "I want to talk to you about something."

"Alright..." she said grabbing her coat and her purse. He stepped back to let her pass and put his hand on the small of her back as they left the White House.

"What about your car?" she asked.

"Don't worry. I can get it tomorrow."

"'Kay..."

Josh sat in the passenger's seat of Donna's car silently until she attempted to take a right that would have taken them to his apartment. "Go to yours," he said in a tone that Donna knew not to question.

They didn't talk for the rest of the drive. She pulled into a spot near her building. "Now what?" she asked, unsure of what they were doing or what Josh wanted to talk about. He just got out of the car and began walking toward her stoop.

Donna sighed as she got out, locked the car and followed him. She knew he was upset at the outcome of the China/Taiwan fiasco. Knowing Josh as well as she did she just followed him.

Josh had already used his key to open the front door and he was holding it for her. He let her unlock her own apartment door, for which she was grateful. She entered her tiny one bedroom apartment. She had received a raise after the election and was now able to afford her own apartment; gone was the noisy, nosy roommate and cats.

Josh followed her in, threw his coat on the back of a dinette chair and pulled off his tie. Donna gave him a perplexed look. Again he smiled a soft enigmatic smile. "Go get comfortable," he said nodding toward her bedroom while toeing off his shoes.

Donna obeyed only because she knew the faster she complied the quicker she'd find out what all this was about. She quickly pulled on a pair of cotton pajamas, pulled her hair back into a ponytail and washed her face. When she returned to the living room Josh was slouched on her sofa, his feet were on her coffee table and the first three buttons of his shirt were undone. He held a beer in his hand. There was a cup of tea for her at the other end of the coffee table.

The only light in the room was coming from the small white lights that he artful woven in along the curtain rods for her last Christmas. Donna had liked the effect so much she kept them up. The small lights cast an intimate, twinkly, orange glow over the room. Donna's furniture threw disproportionate monstrous shadows. Josh's strange mood had made an effect that Donna usually found calming feel slightly chilling.

She grabbed an afghan off the chair and sat on the couch next to Josh tucking her left leg under her and resting her right leg on the table.

"You feel okay?" he asked her.

Donna's eyes widened in surprise, "Do _I_ feel okay? You're the one being all weird."

Josh chuckled softly, "I'm not being weird." He almost said something more then stopped, took a deep breath and gazed at her.

"What?" she whispered.

"What do you think about working for Hoynes's campaign?" he finally blurted out.

Donna's eyes widened, "Me or you?"

"Both," he said softly.

"Josh, we work for the President," she said as if he had forgotten the past seven years.

"Yeah," Josh conceded.

"Did the book bring this on?"

"Kinda."

"Was it that inscription?"

Josh took a deep breath, "I met with him."

"You what?! When?"

"Drink your tea," Josh answered.

Donna wrinkled her nose, "It's microwaved."

"You'll drink it and you'll like it."

"Did you poison it?" she asked not entirely joking.

"Like I'd tell you," Josh said smiling a real smile for the first time all night.

"When?" Donna persisted.  
"Tonight."

"That's were you were? You missed James Taylor."

"Yeah."

"So?"

"He wants me to run his campaign," Josh said shrugging as if it were no big deal.

"Well of course he does. He lost the last campaign he was in because you left him and worked for the other guy. You got the President elected Josh. Of course he wants you. Every Democrat with political aspirations wants you."

"You should say things like that to me everyday," Josh said, pulling the end of the afghan over his lap.

"But, you're not really thinking..." Donna trailed off. Josh working for Hoynes again was ridiculous.

"He said some interesting things," Josh said lightly.

Now Donna knew what they were doing, Josh wanted her to talk him down. He didn't want to work for Hoynes he just wanted to hear the reasons why. After the week he had had she was more than willing to indulge him. "Josh, he's flattering you."

"Thanks," Josh said, with more hurt in his voice than she had expected.

"No, I mean," she leaned closer to him, "you've had a crappy week with the whole China thing. CJ getting Chief of Staff shook you a little. Then this book comes out and you're mentioned thirty-nine times to Toby's two and CJ's none. Then Hoynes comes and tells you that he wants you to run his campaign; that you can resurrect his political career... Of course you're flattered, you should be. Everything he's said about you is true and lately you feel like everybody in the West Wing has forgot that their there because of you. But Josh, that doesn't make him, Hoynes, the guy to hitch your wagon to..."

"No farm metaphors, please," Josh said with a grin that didn't reach his eyes.

"It doesn't make him the real thing this time around, Josh."

Donna watched the raw emotion on Josh's face as he processed what she said. The muted light highlighted his angular features. Donna had crept so close to him during her elucidation that she rested her chin against his shoulder and waited.

"He said... he said that I could never be Leo McGarry to Jed Bartlet," Josh whispered.

"Yeah," Donna conceded finding Josh's hand under the blanket.

Josh took several deep breaths and then pulled his right leg underneath him and turned to face Donna. "Do you remember last spring, before you went to... you know on the CODEL? Remember what you said to me?"

Donna shook her head slightly, not sure what she had said, she had said a lot of things.

"You said you want to grow in your job, that you don't want just earn a pay check. I don't either. There's nowhere else for me to go in this job. There's nothing left for me to do. I can't do the things I really want to. I'm being shut out left and right."

"No..."

"Yes, not just this China trip, but last year with Carrick and that damn free trade agreement and... a long time."

"Josh..."

"You know what the President said to me once? He said... he said, 'Why is it for every good thing you do around here, we have to endure three screw-ups?'"

Donna gasped, she couldn't imagine Josiah Bartlet saying anything so hurtful to anyone, let alone Josh, "When?"

Josh shook his head, "A long time ago. I'm not saying I haven't screwed up, sometimes royally, but it was never because I didn't care about my job it was because..."

"You couldn't do your job the way it should have been done," Donna said resting her forehead against his collar bone.

Josh nodded and swallowed. Josh began to play with Donna's fingers as he spoke so softly that if Donna hadn't been resting against his chest she wouldn't have heard him, "My dad once told me that there was nothing I could ever do that would make him not be proud of me. When he died...I didn't have anyone to be proud of me any more. I tried to make Leo and the President... but neither one of them is my father and they can't be proud of me like he was, but every time I disappoint them I feel like I'm disappointing my father. That's so stupid."

"No it's not. You make _me_ proud, Josh," Donna whispered.

Josh lowered his head so his lips rested against the top of her head. "I know. Thanks. That's why I want you to come with me. It might not be Hoynes," he conceded, "but it will be someone and I want you with me."

Donna raised her head and looked Josh straight in the eyes, "I meant what I said last spring. I can't be your assistant for the rest of my life... I can't."

By the look in Josh's eyes Donna could tell she couldn't have hurt him more if she had shot him in the chest again. She squeezed his hands hard before he could react, "I can't be your assistant, but Josh, that doesn't mean that I don't want to be there, with you, to help you, whatever you do, where ever you go. Please understand what I'm saying, Josh."

Donna couldn't tell if Josh truly understood until he crossed the centimeters that separated them to press his lips to hers. Donna let herself fall into the softest, most reverent kisses she had ever experienced. Finally she rested her head against Josh's temple. "We'll find the real thing, Josh," she whispered.

"We just did," Josh whispered back.


End file.
